Because nations, divided by the prejudices of ignorance and hatred,
seconded the wickedness of their governments; and availing themselves
reciprocally of subordinate agents, aggravated their mutual slavery:

Because, the balance between states being destroyed, the strong more
easily oppressed the weak.

Finally, because in proportion as states were concentrated, the people,
despoiled of their laws, of their usages, and of the government of
their choice, lost that spirit of personal identification with their
government, which had caused their energy.

And despots, considering empires as their private domains and the people
as their property, gave themselves up to depredations, and to all the
licentiousness of the most arbitrary authority.

And all the strength and wealth of nations were diverted to private
expense and personal caprice; and kings, fatigued with gratification,
abandoned themselves to all the extravagancies of factitious and
depraved taste.* They must have gardens mounted on arcades, rivers
raised over mountains, fertile fields converted into haunts for wild
beasts; lakes scooped in dry lands, rocks erected in lakes, palaces
built of marble and porphyry, furniture of gold and diamonds. Under
the cloak of religion, their pride founded temples, endowed indolent
priests, built, for vain skeletons, extravagant tombs, mausoleums and
pyramids;** millions of hands were employed in sterile labors; and the
luxury of princes, imitated by their parasites, and transmitted
from grade to grade to the lowest ranks, became a general source of
corruption and impoverishment.